Butler to show documentary about ending homelessness

(MIRROR INDY) — A new documentary that explores solutions to homelessness will air in Indianapolis this month as part of a nationwide tour.

“Beyond the Bridge: A Solution to Homelessness,” from A Bigger Vision Films, is based on the documentary crew’s journey to 12 cities. It emphasizes the need for a broad homelessness response system and makes a pitch for the housing first model, which prioritizes permanent housing as a basic need.

You can watch the documentary free at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 20 at Butler University’s Clowes Memorial Hall, 4602 Sunset Ave. The event will include a Q&A.

“Beyond the Bridge” is a follow-up to the documentary “Under the Bridge,” which is set in Indianapolis and details the criminalization of homelessness.

Producer and director Don Sawyer spoke with Mirror Indy about “Beyond the Bridge,” including why it was a difficult film to make and what he hopes audiences can learn about homelessness.

The Q&A has been edited lightly for clarity and brevity.

Why he tackled homelessness

Question: Why is filmmaking important to you to tell these stories?

Answer: I came into filmmaking making films about homelessness. As I learned about the unnecessary existence of homelessness and the injustice of it all, it just kind of outraged you. As a documentary filmmaker, you’re usually driven by something that’s outrageous, and you just want to tell that story.

For this one, all I ever heard was homeless people were drunk and mentally ill, and all they wanted to do was be homeless. When I found out the truth of that is so much different — that it’s a systemic issue that throws people into homelessness and then keeps them there — I just felt I needed to tell that story.

Q: What was your introduction to the education of all of that?

A: It was a long time. I used to live in LA, and I used to go down to Skid Row and pass out food and clothes. But I didn’t know a thing about homelessness. I was just doing it.

When I came to Indianapolis, I came upon a camp and met a guy named Maurice Young.

If you go

• What: “Beyond the Bridge: A Solution to Homelessness”
• Where: Clowes Memorial Hall at Butler University, 4602 Sunset Ave.
• When: 4:30 p.m. Aug. 20
• Cost: Free

He was a school without walls for me. He explained everything that I was seeing, and he was my education.

From there, I just kind of became a bit of an advocate but still objective as a filmmaker, looking at the entire issue from both sides: people who are responsible for dealing with the problem and then the people who are suffering.

This documentary is about solutions

Q: “Beyond the Bridge” is meant to be a follow-up to “Under the Bridge,” right?

A: It is. “Under the Bridge” pointed out the problem. When we would show the film around the country, they’d be saying, “Well, thanks for pointing out the problem. What’s the solution?”

We took that seriously, and we decided, well, why don’t we make a film about solutions? And we didn’t know anything. So we did meet people along the way. The executive director of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance introduced us to Dr. Sampson Barris, who created and developed the housing first model to address homelessness.

And from there, we found that world of people who believe in housing people versus sheltering them as a solution. But housing first couldn’t end homelessness alone. So we then looked further. What cities are actually having success dealing with the problem on a holistic level? So we found systems that were working, and they based those systems upon housing people instead of sheltering them.

Influential trips to Milwaukee and Houston

Q: I saw you traveled 40,000 miles for “Beyond the Bridge.” What parts of the country did that take you to?

A: Coast to coast. We did a West Coast thing from Seattle down to LA. We were in Boston, New York City, Milwaukee, Houston, everywhere.

Q: What were a couple of the most influential stops?

A: The two most influential stops were Milwaukee and Houston. They had the courage to say, ‘Our system isn’t working the way it is, and we’re gonna fix it like we would fix something that is of an urgent nature.’ When you put your heads together like that, you actually come up with solutions.

We found places that had very innovative piecemeal things. UCLA combined with the county of Los Angeles, and they came up with this algorithm that could predict if somebody is about to become homeless. If you fall into that category, you get a call about how to get help. Instead of them becoming homeless, they intervened before.

[A tiny homes community to help people who are homeless]

In Denver, they have this huge health care center for homeless folks. I would love getting my health care from there. It’s beautiful.

Q: How hard? Can you describe a situation that puts that into perspective?

A: First of all, all of our travel was in a car. It’s a nice car, it’s a truck, but that was tough. It was tough being away from family for long periods of time. That was probably the toughest part.

In D.C., we went to this park trying to get random interviews from people who were sleeping in tents there. There was one woman that followed us around and was cussing at us and telling us we’re just trying to exploit them and all this stuff. What are you gonna do? She lives there. We tried to explain that we’re trying to help.

There was a guy living there who kind of backed her off. But the cool thing is we just showed the film in D.C. at a conference. That guy was at the screening, and he came up to us and described who he was, and we remembered him.

That was very gratifying, but at the time, it seemed a little dangerous.

Building trust is crucial

Q: Did you have to have a little bit of a sales pitch? Like you said, you’re trying to help, but it’s kind of abstract. I’m sure people were skeptical, like the woman you described.

A: Not everybody will talk to you. Not everybody believes that you can help. Trust is the main thing. Maybe it’s in our faces or something, I don’t know.

Maybe it’s just that nobody really cares, and the people who come around are big news cameras that end up being negative on them.

Yeah, we have to sell what we’re trying to do. We have to say a few phrases that let them know we know what we’re talking about, that we know what they’re going through. Trust is everything when you’re dealing with people.

Q: Has this changed how you approach these things individually, when you’re not the filmmaker or producer?

A: Well, I wasn’t the filmmaker at first. Maybe that’s what really helped. I interacted with people who were experiencing homelessness way before I was a filmmaker, so maybe that’s what made them trust me.

Homelessness is complicated

Q: Last thing. For anybody who goes and sees this documentary, what do you want them to walk away thinking?

A: That homelessness is both complicated and easy to fix. And it is not normally the fault of homeless people.

There are what’s called upstream causes to homelessness. There’s an affordable housing crisis. Indianapolis has been the second — and now I think the fourth — leading eviction place. Where do you think they’re gonna go? They might have family or something and they can sleep on couches. After that wears out, they’re on the street.

I’ve even met a rocket scientist who was homeless. He had a bit of a mental illness, but he was on the street. You can relate to the people that are on the street. They are not normally the cause.

So if it is more of a systemic issue — policies and approaches that are the issue — then that can be fixed.

The problems are normally upstream, which means when you have cities and counties arguing about some stupidness, then there’s your problem. That’s your problem up there. It’s not the homeless folks.

Fix that, you fix the problem, and everybody’s happy.

Mirror Indy reporter Tyler Fenwick covers economics. Contact him at 317-766-1406 or tyler.fenwick@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @ty_fenwick.